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Clinton: Depth, Scope of Disaster ‘Unimaginable’

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. and the world must do everything possible to help Haiti surmount its “cycle of hope and despair,” according to the Associated Press.

Appearing on morning TV news shows in the U.S. after cutting short an overseas trip, Mrs. Clinton said it’s still too early to make a firm estimate of the number of deaths in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating, 7.0 magnitude earthquake. But she said officials know that approximately three million people, including 45,000 Americans, have been affected and that “tens of thousands, we fear, are dead.”

Mrs. Clinton noted that the small Caribbean country was still recovering, with help from Washington, the United Nations and other countries, from the damage wrought by last year’s storms, saying a key challenge now is to “get people back into some semblance of normalcy.” She called Haitians “resilient people” and said no one is giving up on them.

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In another interview, Mrs. Clinton said, “We are doing all we can to figure out how to attack the devastation all around and this is going to be a long-term effort,” from saving lives and providing food, water and medical supplies, to beginning the reconstruction process,” the AP reports.

“We have a full court press going on here at the president’s direction,” Mrs. Clinton added. “This is a
devastating catastrophe, just to figure out what steps to take so we don’t make the situation worse … This is incredibly complex work. We have some of the best people in the world from the United States down there and we’re just going to do everything we can to be helpful.”

Of the damage in Haiti, Mrs. Clinton said “the depth and scope is unimaginable.”